CenTex Consolidated

First of all, and most importantly, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays to the beautiful and expanding AquaTex Waterpolo community. We’re so glad to have you with us.

Cowtown Recap

Our new-look (and short-handed) 16u boys team went 1-3 at the Cowtown Stampede last weekend with Coach Max in at the helm. A couple challenging first games vs. Viper Pigeon and Alamo were followed buy much closer matches against Pegasus and Zilla. The team is making progress and most definitely take away more to learn after the (exhausting) weekend.

Meanwhile, Gavin was a key contributor for and Elvis made his tournament debut with Longhorn’s 18u runner up team, which fell to Pegasus in the tournament final; Jean scored his first ever goal for the Longhorn 14u squad; Jonas was one of the leading scorers for the 12u team, as Graham was for the 10u team. We’re so excited for all our new, young athletes.

Well done to everyone who participated, thanks to all the parents who attended, and to Coach Max for leading the team.

A reminder to those who did participate: the fee is $95/athlete payable to Coach James via Venmo or Zelle.

Roster Calls

A quick note on upcoming competition:

• More details coming but Longhorn has invited us to a Winter Beach Polo Blitz on Sunday, January 7. We’ll see whether that replaces practice for most or some.
• AquaTex will have a January Game Day with Longhorn on Sunday, January 21. Again, details forthcoming, but we can all plan on game days with Longhorn happening roughly once a month.
• Dare to Dream for 10u and 12u athletes is in Pearland (Houston) on January 27-28. Our young athletes are expected to attend. We want AquaTex 10u and 12u teams ready to go!

Training Schedule

Updated 3 January 2024 to correct an error.

On January 3 we begin an updated training schedule for our high school and age group rosters:

• Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 6:40 PM to 9:00 PM
• Saturday and Sunday from 9:40 AM to noon

High school and age group athletes are expected to be at the pool on time for 20 minutes of stretching and dryland; thus the 6:40 PM and 9:40 AM start times. Wear proper clothing.

Schedules and programming for Novice Waterpolo and Swim2Score are being updated over the holiday break and will be published as soon as possible. For now, Swim2Score will remain on Sundays at 10:00 AM. We will have more firm times and days for Novice Waterpolo soon.

Holiday Break

We will have practice the morning of Saturday, December 23 after which we will go on hiatus until Wednesday, January 3. We hope everyone has a joyous holiday and we’ll see you again in January.

Milestones

November and December Birthdays! Happy birthday to all of you.

• Saaketh, 10/30
• Jacob, 12/20
• Gavin, 11/9
• KJ, 11/19
• Elvis, 11/29
• Ana, 12/9
• Annika, 12/13
• Austin, 11/21
• Helen, 11/4

See you on the deck in January.

(Another) New Coach

Welcome to Max Staresenic, our newest addition to the coaching staff. Coach Max learned how to play water polo in Pittsburgh, enough so to be named Pennsylvania’s high school player of the year before heading off to play at UCLA. Post collegiate career he turned to coaching with Tiger Water Polo in Pennsylvania and the famous Bruin Water Polo Club in LA under UCLA Head Coach Adam Wright. He and his business partner, Jonny Songer (otherwise known as Jonny Rocket of YouTube fame) are also coaching water polo at Westover Country Club in Austin (more about that in the coming days).

Take a moment to say hi next time you can. You can expect to see a lot of Coach Max! Welcome aboard.

Recaps

As the high school season winds down we need to get ready for several upcoming tournaments this winter (our winter season begins November 1). But first…

Alamo Classic

We’re so excited that some of our newest athletes went and competed so well at the Alamo Classic in San Antonio with Coach Sebastian and our friends from Longhorn. Word is that Izzy was dominant for the Longhorn 8th grade girls, Ilay did the same for his 12u team, and our newest athletes, Neel, Preston, Graham, and Jonas were huge contributors to their team after most of them have only about a month of training with AquaTex! And finally, Ilay continues to shine, also dominating for his Longhorn 12u team. We’re so excited to have so many new players competing. Well done to all of them, their Longhorn teammates, and Coach Sebastian.

TISCA Championships

Meanwhile, CenTex Consolidated earned fourth place in the state with a big win over John Paul II in the initial match of the TISCA Consolidated High School Championship Tournament last Saturday, then a close call against Houston Rebels to finish fourth. This ragtag group held it together despite injuries, homecomings, and a short bench. It’s the end of the season for our first ever high school consolidated team so huge congratulations to JP, Chase, Aaron, Jacob, Remy, Cash, William and their teammates from Longhorn and Zilla who joined us. And massive thanks to Coach Anthony who led them the whole way.

Upcoming Competition

You can find these events on our Tourneys page. Be sure to read through them and then sign those kids up!

TAGS (Texas Age Group Championships)

AKA the Texas middle school championships, is now officially on the calendar for November 4-5 in Southlake and Keller. Again, we want a big turnout for this tournament since it marks the end of our Fall season. It’s what we’re training for! It’s for anyone in 8th grade or younger.

Mavericks Tourney

Originally set for San Antonio this tourney had to switch locations to North Texas, November 18-19. This is the first chance for ALL our UIL and CenTex Consolidated athletes to show off those fall-honed skills against all our usual Texas competitors. Coach Max is already excited to get us ready to excel.

Cowtown Stampede

And one of our favorites, a tourney we have done very well at in the past. December 16-17 in Keller featuring all age groups. Let’s finish 2023 with a bang and a huge turnout.

Milestones

Birthdays! We’ve been neglecting them so time to catch up some. Happy birthday (some belated) to:

• Clayton, 9/13
• Chase, 10/23
• Rocco, 9/25
• Aaron, 10/2

And welcome to the club Dhruv, Andrew, Oliver, Helen, Delton, Aanay, Ada, Annika, Elvis, Kendrick, Jonas, Preston, Margaret! So stoked to have so many newcomers to Swim2Score, and our Age Group/HS programs.

And in case you didn’t already see it, our Jacob Gerakos got some pub in the local Temple newspaper! Way to rep the club and CenTex Consolidated, Jacob.

Gear

A couple gear reminders: thanks to our newcomers who have already purchased the required gear. To those who haven’t yet, each athlete is required to have one “uniform” t-shirt, and one competition suit. You can find all the eligible uniform items here.

Plus, the weather is (finally) getting colder. For all our shivering athletes and parents on the deck check out our cold weather gear: parkas, hoodies, sweats, and probably more soon, like sweatpants. As always, if you have a product you think would look good in AquaTex colors let us know.

Camps & Clinics

Nominations are open for the 2023 Holiday Camp in Colorado. It’s a great chance for any of our athletes in 8th grade to work with some of the best coaches in the US and train with players from all over the country. You can find details here but be sure to let Coach James know if you’d like to attend because you can only do so with a nomination from you coach. If you’re interested you’ll definitely be nominated.

More soon but until then, see you on the deck.

It’s September and aside from the weather it seems like a new beginning for the club. Some important updates for everyone as we welcome a new season with lots of new faces.

New Coaches

We want to welcome four people to the coaching ranks. Sebastian Houng is our newest hire. He comes from Diamond Bar High School in SoCal where he was a record-setting goalkeeper prior to earning a spot at West Point, where he played and coached water polo. He’s now serving in the US Army in Austin.

Anthony Gerakos has graciously joined us to help with our Consolidated HS team in particular. He is another SoCal native who played at Indio High School and now lives in Belton with some young man named Jacob (a long-time member of the club for those who didn’t already know!).

Akriti Mandal and Kailee Seto are AquaTex athletes who join Corina Nunziata as coaches with our Swim2Score program under Coach Babs. All of them have been terrific additions to the staff. Just ask the youngsters who work with them!

Welcome aboard, all of you, and thank you for your dedication.

New Athletes/Families

It’s been a banner fall for the club with a host of new families. It’s an exciting time for the club with the influx of new, young faces. We’re excited to start competing with all of them. Welcome to all of you, and to those yet to join us (we hope you will). Here are a few things for you and for our veteran families.

Parent Meeting

You can plan on an invitation to an online parent meeting in the coming weeks. We have a lot of new faces as part of the program, and lots of veterans as well. We need to share important information about how the club works: competition, communications, training, finances, etc. If you have a topic you want covered be sure to contact Coach James. Very tentatively we’ll put it on the calendar for Thursday, September 21 at 7:00 PM. More to come.

Communications

A quick reminder especially to our newcomers: because we’re part of AquaTex Swim Team you can expect to get emails from Coaches Mark and Marcy that are intended for swim families but not necessarily for water polo families. The emails that pertain specifically to AquaTex Waterpolo will either come from or from an email with aquatexwaterpolo.com domain. In response to an email regarding USA Swimming registration someone asked if that was relevant to water polo families. It is not but if you have any doubts please do contact me.

Roster Calls

You can find these events on our Tourneys page. And for those who might ask, we are trying very hard to field our own teams from now on. I’ve mentioned it many times: we are very pleased with our relationship with Longhorn. And we will continue to communicate with them about fielding joint teams if neither club has enough for its own. But let’s plan on working toward fielding AquaTex-only rosters as much as possible going forward.

The Alamo Classic for 14u athletes is on October 7-8 in San Antonio and we do plan on sending AquaTex teams (12u and 10u in particular). This will be the first competition for many of our athletes, which we’re really excited about. We expect a big turnout so sign up today.

The Team Vegas Founders Cup will be our first ever trip to Nevada. As of now our plans are to take that same 14u team that competed in California at JOs this past summer. Every one of those athletes, except one (!), is eligible. I would like to have a team of 10 athletes committed to travel and play at that tournament by September 22 so we can officially enter. The deadline is October 1 but the tournament is filling up quickly. The sooner we can rally the sooner we can register. So start bugging each other via GroupMe! And, of course, if there are sufficient numbers of 12u athletes then we’ll sign them up too.

TAGS (Texas Age Group Championships), AKA the Texas middle school championships, is now officially on the calendar for November 4-5 in Southlake and Keller. Again, we want a big turnout for this tournament since it marks the end of our Fall season. It’s what we’re training for!

Camps & Clinics

ODP

I’m delighted to hear how many of our families are interested in or already registered to participate in ODP (USA Water Polo’s Olympic Development Program). For our newcomers, you can read more about what ODP is here. Maybe even more important, here is when and where the camps are taking place and for which age groups.

I was the head coach of the Southwest Zone Boys for eight great years so I have a high opinion of the program. Feel free to ask questions about it if you have any. I plan to attend the Cadet Camp #1 at the RRAC on September 17, and I encourage our coaches to do the same. There are some great opportunities to learn from other coaches.

The Perfect Goalie Camp

On September 16 Team USA goalie coach Michael Zellmer will be in Houston conducting two back-to-back goalie clinics. Our goalies are encouraged to attend. And we’ll definitely keep an eye open for other goalie-training opportunities in Texas.

CenTex Consolidated

Our consolidated team has a big weekend ahead with games at the RRAC against both consolidated and UIL teams (exhibitions!). Also, we are looking in to hosting a scrimmage day with other consolidated teams at the end of September. Stay tuned.

See you on the deck.